What We Lose When We Eliminate Controversial Content

[Alzrius]

As I mentioned, if you care about verisimilitude, then also include STDs, PTSD, maggots in the gruel, no beds in the inns (people slept on the floor back then), and other realistic things.

It's been pointed out to you before that world-building and game-play (and thus, verisimilitude in world-building versus verisimilitude in game-play) are two different contexts. You can say that a plague is ravaging the land, and note how that's shaped society, without having the PCs make multiple saves against a disease every single day, and that's not contradictory or hypocritical in any regard.

 

[Faolyn]

So it's all or nothing? Simulation as a playstyle doesn't exist?

You can't claim that it's verisimilitude if you're only including the parts that make for a cooler game for you. Why is slavery a good thing to include but PTSD not?

You want to claim you're including slavery because you like having it in the setting because it makes for a fun plot point for you that doesn't unduly affect the players, go ahead. But that's not verisimilitude.

 

[Umbran]

There is slavery going on right now that is completely unconnected to the American historical experience, you know that right?

That there is current day slavery does not, in the larger scheme of things, make it okay* (for an American game publisher) to ignore the historical stuff the repercussions of which we struggle with to this day.

*And by "okay" I mean, "without some significant criticism".

 

[Micah Sweet]

You can't claim that it's verisimilitude if you're only including the parts that make for a cooler game for you. Why is slavery a good thing to include but PTSD not?

You want to claim you're including slavery because you like having it in the setting because it makes for a fun plot point for you that doesn't unduly affect the players, go ahead. But that's not verisimilitude.

I never said anything about fun plot points. Please see my previous posts.

 

[Faolyn]

I would actually be happy to include those things, by the way, when it is practical to do so and provided I don't get push-back from my players. My own rules are generally working towards that goal.

And that almost answers my question from my last post.

Why is slavery more practical and less prone to push-back than inflicting PTSD on your PCs?

 

[Micah Sweet]

That there is current day slavery does not, in the larger scheme of things, make it okay (for an American game publisher) to ignore the historical stuff the repercussions of which we struggle with to this day.

And yet games set in the modern world don't necessarily confront modern day slavery directly despite its presence in the setting.

 

[Faolyn]

There's a distinction which your post here doesn't recognize, which is that world-building is different from what the PCs interact with in the course of a game session. Those are two entirely different modes of interacting with the setting.

Even leaving aside issues of balancing verisimilitude with "game-ability" (for lack of a better term), i.e. why we use hit points rather than hit locations and wound-tracking, world-building involves constructing the "how" of the world on a macro-scale. Making an individual check to see if someone contracts an infection after being wounded takes place in an entirely different mode, as it's a game-play issue as much as it is a lore and backdrop issue.

So yes, you do still care about verisimilitude if you have slavery in your game but don't include STDs. The watchword is consistency within the context of the setting as a whole, not "every bad thing must be represented."

I find this to be a cop-out. They both are part of world-building and roleplaying. And if the game includes rules for becoming a slave--such as that first Dark Sun adventure--then slavery has "game-ability."

 

[Alzrius]

I find this to be a cop-out. They both are part of world-building and roleplaying. And if the game includes rules for becoming a slave--such as that first Dark Sun adventure--then slavery has "game-ability."

I disagree with your characterization regarding it being a cop-out. "Gamism" and "simulationism" are very different aspects of approaching the hobby, and both are entirely valid. Inflicting something on your PCs, particularly with regularity, cannot be reasonably compared with questions of how an entire fictional society is generated so as to encourage suspension of disbelief. Those are two completely separate concerns.

 

[Micah Sweet]

And that almost answers my question from my last post.

Why is slavery more practical and less prone to push-back than inflicting PTSD on your PCs?

Because it may make sense in the setting, perhaps to the point @Alzrius mentioned where it seems false if it isn't there, and because my players don't object to its presence in the world. They may or may not object to PTSD for their PCs. There's also the question of rules to consider, which obviously matters more when they interact directly with PCs. Lots of factors involved.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Technically (and historically) so is slavery. The US experience of slavery is not sum total of history.

Mod Note:

Again with the trivial truths. You’re done in this thread because of this cavalier attitude towards the topic.

Slavery in all likelihood predates recorded human history. American slavery, however had its own unique brew of factors, including:

1) it was lifelong and generational.
2) it was based on the social/legal construct of “race”, and as such, even people within American society who did not appear to be at risk were still at risk. The Library of Congress has a collection of “Escaped Slave” ads that describe people we would describe as white, but who were slave-born or presumed to have been, and could not prove otherwise. (Yes, the burden was on the slave to prove “whiteness”- which would void the legality of enslavement- not the person claiming to be their owner.)
3) the primary source of slaves was not prisoners war between neighboring peoples but an ongoing commercial enterprise.
4) blacks were not considered fully human by a large percentage of those in the trade or benefitting from it, which was one key justification for slavery being acceptable. This meant that even free people of color within American society faced lifelong risks & roadblocks similar to those who were enslaved. And the concept we are lesser beings has rippled through time, still affecting people living today.

I note this all because I hope it will stave off future postings similar to yours in this thread.